Sluice

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Sluice

A sluice is a water channel that is controlled at its head by a gate (from Dutch word 'sluis').

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A sluice is a water channel that is controlled at its head by a gate (from Dutch word 'sluis'). For example, a millrace is a sluice that channels water toward a water mill. The terms "sluice gate" and "slide gate" are used interchangeably in the water/wastewater control industry.

A sluice gate is traditionally a wooden or metal plate which slides in grooves in the sides of the channel. Sluice gates are commonly used to control water levels and flow rates in river

River

A river is a natural stream of water, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, or another stream. In some cases a river flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water....
s and canal

Canal

Canals are artificial channels for water. There are two types of canals: Aqueduct canals, which are used for the conveyance and delivery of water, and waterways, which are navigable transportation canals used for passage of goods and people, often connected to existing lakes, rivers, or oceans....
s. They are also used in wastewater treatment plants and to recover minerals in mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of value minerals or other geology materials from the earth, usually from an ore body, vein or seam. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, Sodium chloride and potash....
operations.

A sluice/slide gate is a double-faced valve consisting of an open frame and a slide. Examples of where this type of valve is used include controlling flow (water and wastewater) at openings in tank walls and at ends of pipes. The term "slide gate" has been adopted for use by series of standards (C561, American Water Works Association) C561 is the standard for Fabricated Stainless Steel Slide (Sluice) Gates. This standard was approved in January of 2004.

This standard describes fabricated stainless steel sluice/slide gates with full aperture closure, designed for either seating or unseating head, or both, in ordinary water supply service. The stainless steel gates have non-metallic seat/seals, which may be of self-adjusting design. Some sluice gate manufacturers use ultra high molecular weight (UHMW) polyethelene seat/seals, to allow ease of movement and eliminate friction.

Operation

Raising a sluice gate allows water to flow under it. (The term sluice gate refers to any gate that operates by allowing water to flow under it.) When a sluice gate is fully lowered, water sometimes spills over the top, in which case the gate operates as a weir

Weir

A weir is a small overflow-type dam commonly used to raise the level of a river or stream. Weirs have traditionally been used to create Water mills in such places....
.

Usually a mechanism drives the sluice gate up or down. This may be a simple, hand-operated, worm drive or rack and pinion drive

Rack and pinion

A rack and pinion is a pair of gears which convert rotational motion into linear motion. The circular pinion engages teeth on a flat bar - the rack....
, or it may be electrically or hydraulically

Hydraulics

Hydraulics is a topic of science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Hydraulics is part of the more general discipline of fluid power....
powered.

Types of sluice gates

Flap sluice gate : A fully automatic type, which is controlled by the pressure head across it; operation is similar to a check valve

Check valve

A check valve, clack valve, non-return valve or one-way valve is a mechanical device, a valve, which normally allows fluid to flow through it in only one direction....
. It is a gate hinged at the top. When pressure is from one side, the gate is kept closed; a pressure from the other side opens the sluice when a threshold pressure is surpassed. Vertical rising sluice gate : A plate sliding in the vertical direction, controlled by machinery. Radial sluice gate : A structure, where a small part of a cylindrical surface serves as the gate, supported by radial constructions going through the cylinder's radius. Occasionally a counterweight is provided. Rising sector sluice gate : Also a part of a cylindrical surface, which rests at the bottom of the channel and rises by rotating around its centre. Needle sluice : A sluice formed by a number of thin needles held against a solid frame through water pressure as in a needle dam

Needle dam

A needle dam is a weir designed to maintain the level or flow of a river through the use of thin "needles" of wood. The needles are leaned against a solid frame and are not intended to be water-tight....
. The gates of a Guillotine lock

Guillotine lock

A guillotine lock is a type of canal lock. The lock itself operates on the same principle as any normal pound lock, but is unusual in that each gate is a single piece, usually of steel, that slides vertically upwards when opened to allow a boat to traverse underneath....
work in a way similar to a sluice gate, but most canal lock gates are hinged to swing like doors.

Regional names for sluice gates

In the Somerset Levels

Somerset Levels

The Somerset Levels is a sparsely populated coastal plain and wetland area of central Somerset, England, between the Quantock Hills and Mendip Hills hills....
, sluice gates are known as clyse or clyce. Most of the inhabitants of Guyana

Guyana

Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and previously known as British Guiana, is the only state of the Commonwealth of Nations on mainland South America....
refer to sluices as kokers.

Logging sluices

In the mountain

Mountain

A mountain is a landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is generally steeper than a hill....
s of New England

New England

New England is a region of the United States located in the northeastern corner of the country, bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and New York State, and consisting of the modern U.S....
, sluices were used to transport logs from steep hillsides to downslope sawmill

Sawmill

A sawmill is a facility where logging are cut into lumbers....
pond

Pond

A pond is a body of water smaller than a lake, both being examples of terrain feature. Although the term pond is universally used to describe waterbodies that are smaller than lakes, an internationally recognised size cutoff has not yet been agreed, with values ranging from 2 hectares to 8 hectares used to distinguish the smaller from...
s or yarding areas. 19th century logging

Logging

Logging is the process in which certain trees are cut down for forest management and timber....
was traditionally a winter activity for men who spent summers working on farm

Farm

A farm is an area of land, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibers and, increasingly, fuel....
s. Water

Water

Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life. In typical usage, water refers only to its liquid form or States of matter, but the substance also has a solid state, ice, and a gaseous state, water vapor or steam....
was applied to logging

Logging

Logging is the process in which certain trees are cut down for forest management and timber....
sluices every night

Night

Night or nighttime is the period of time when the sun is below the horizon. The opposite of night is day . Time of day varies based on factors such as season, latitude, longitude and timezone....
so a fresh coating of slippery ice

Ice

Ice is a solid phases of matter, usually crystalline solid, of a non-metallic substance that is liquid or gas at room temperature, such as ammonia ice or methane ice....
would reduce friction of logs placed in the sluice the following morning

Morning

The word morning originally referred to the sunrise. Morning precedes noon, afternoon, and night in the sequence of a day.Morning is the part of the day usually reckoned from either midnight or dawn to noon....
.

Placer mining applications

Sluiceboxes are often used in the recovery of black sand

Black sand

Black sand is sand that is black in colour. One type of black sand is a heavy, glossy, partly magnetic mixture of usually fine sands, found as part of a placer deposit....
s, gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
, and other minerals from placer deposit

Placer deposit

In geology, a placer deposit or placer is an accumulation of valuable minerals formed by deposition of dense mineral phases in a trap site....
s during placer mining

Placer mining

Placer mining is the mining of Alluvium deposits for minerals. This may be done by Open pit mining or by various forms of tunneling into ancient riverbeds....
operations. They may be small-scale, as used in prospecting

Prospecting

Prospecting is the physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is also known as fossicking.Prospecting is synonymous in some ways with mineral exploration which is an organised, large scale and at least semi-scientific effort undertaken by mineral resource companies to find commercially viable ore deposi...
, or much larger as in commercial operations, where the material is first screened using a trommel

Trommel

A trommel is a screened cylinder used to separate materials by size - for example, separating the biodegradable waste fraction of mixed municipal waste or separating different sizes of crushed Rock ....
or screening plant. Typically, the sluices have transverse riffles over a carpet which trap the heavy minerals, gemstone

Gemstone

A gemstone or gem, also called a precious or semi-precious stone, is a piece of attractive mineral, which — when cut and polished — is used to make jewellery or other adornments....
s, and other valuable minerals. The result is a concentrate.

Sluice

Operation

Types of sluice gates

Regional names for sluice gates

Logging sluices

Placer mining applications

Further reading

See also

External links